The last time you played in Manchester was for Process, how do you feel about coming back to the Northern crowd and do you still get nervous playing to ‘unknown’ crowds?

I’m really looking forward coming back to Manchester, it has been a while since last time. Looking forward to the venue as well heard some good stories about it. Nervous not yet, but excited is the right term I think.

As you would imagine, you have a pretty busy gig schedule! Which events have stood out for you so far this year and what factors make for the ‘perfect’ gig?

The perfect gig.. that’s a tough one, I try to really enjoy all gigs and do my best to give it all each and every time. Had some pretty wild ones this past year and it’s hard to say which was best so I got to skip the answer on this one. A ‘perfect’ gig starts as from the moment you are picked up at the airport and having promoters that know what it’s all about as far as I’m concerned.

Both your sound and your production style have both been reported as being timeless and unwavering, having remained consistent throughout your career. What are the big changes in techno that you have seen across the years and how have you remained so true to yourself throughout without having to compromise or altering your style?

The biggest change I have seen is the way things are working these days, it’s going a lot faster than in the ‘early days” just because of the Internet. Music wise it went up and down with the popularity of techno music and for me it didn’t feel right to do other music then just techno. I always try to stay true to myself, but with room to develop and progress.

Can you give us a brief background on how you started producing music, are you self-taught, did someone teach you or did you take a formal course…?

I started doing music a long time ago and my first record was released in the end of ‘93. At that time I didn’t had a studio myself but spend a lot of time working in the studio together with Dj Misjah (X-Trax). After some time I felt the urge to be able to work on solo projects as well and started collecting hardware and to develop my own style.

What’s your go-to of the following (and if you don’t have one, what could you see yourself using?) .. feel free to tell us why!

DAW – Besides my hardware I use a little bit of ableton

Polyphonic synth – My all-time favourite : a Roland JX3P, I am using it in almost all of my tracks. I just love the internal sequencer of this machine

Monophonic synth – That must be my Roland SH101

Drum Machine – Roland again : TR909, but also the little beast MFB522

Studio monitors – KRK Rockit8

Outboard effects unit (delay / reverb…) – Boss Space Echo pedal

And for your live sets, where’s the MIDI clocking from? Midi clock comes from Ableton and I program the hardware in its internal sequencers.

For your live sets, do you have a setup that works that you stick with, or are you constantly changing and tweaking it?

I always have the same machines in my setup but constantly change the programs of the machines as well as the audioloops which come from ableton. Tweaking the machines in real time makes it interesting for me when I am on stage. I don’t program full tracks in advance so it gives me some freedom to play around.

You seem to have quite a prevalent style that comes through in your mixdown – the highs feel very bright and crisp, and lay a sonic sheen for the mids and lows. Do you do your own mixdown and mastering? And how would you describe your sound sonically, are we way off the mark?

You are correct, I do all mixdowns myself but mastering is something for the professional. I never ever mastered any of my tunes, I feel it’s a good thing a master is done by someone else.

Pffff… some crazy things can happen, but scariest thing, don’t know.. Last week two bottles of beer fell over the mixer while I was playing and it just started to come alive after a while.. volumes went up and down automatically, funny but not scary 😉